6 replies to this topic

[TAP]

Because we need some.......

http://www.webpronew...ost-dad-2013-05

A 5-year old girl who lost her policeman dad in the line of duty over the weekend was overwhelmed with support at her Kindergarten graduation on Wednesday, when hundreds of Arizona police officers showed up in his place.

“The purpose of us is to be here in proxy for Daryl and to let her know that we’re here for her,” Police Officer Keith Garn said.

Tatum Raetz celebrated her day with the people who perhaps knew her father best, and who wanted her to know that he was loved and revered. A sad time for the child turned into a day of love and support as a huge crowd of blue uniforms turned up instead of the originally-planned two or three.

“Word got out that this was happening and it went viral within the department and there was absolutely no way that you could keep officers who could be here away from here. they came, even with their families,” Officer James Holmes explained. “She had 300, 400 parents up here for her this morning. It was absolutely amazing. It was bittersweet and it was a bit overwhelming for all of us.”

[TAP]

http://www.telegraph...eing-brave.html

Gemini Donnelly-Martin, 20, and her mother Amanda, 44, said that they walked up to the two attackers and asked if they could comfort Drummer Lee Rigby, who was killed in a savage assault after being stabbed and hacked with a knife and meat cleaver.

Mother and daughter, together with Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, have been praised as heroes, but former Lewisham College student Gemini have brushed aside talk of their bravery.

“We did what anyone would do,” she told the Daily Mirror. “We just wanted to take care of the man. It wasn’t brave. Anyone would have done it. It had to be done. They [the killers] said women could pass.”

She added: “The only thing people need to worry about is that poor man’s mum. We are grateful, though, for what people are saying about us.”

TV footage showed the pair caring for the dead soldier’s body, yards from his attackers, with Amanda kneeling by the body and praying with her daughter by her side, as Michael Adebolajo ranted at the camera.

[freedom78]

Here's one to lower your faith in humanity...

***********************************************************************************************
Some disabled workers paid just pennies an hour – and it's legal

Critics cry exploitation as a federal loophole allows companies to pay thousands of disabled workers across the country far less than the minimum wage.

By Anna Schecter, Producer, NBC News

One of the nation's best-known charities is paying disabled workers as little as 22 cents an hour, thanks to a 75-year-old legal loophole that critics say needs to be closed.
Goodwill Industries, a multibillion-dollar company whose executives make six-figure salaries, is among the nonprofit groups permitted to pay thousands of disabled workers far less than minimum wage because of a federal law known as Section 14 C. Labor Department records show that some Goodwill workers in Pennsylvania earned wages as low as 22, 38 and 41 cents per hour in 2011.

"If they really do pay the CEO of Goodwill three-quarters of a million dollars, they certainly can pay me more than they're paying," said Harold Leigland, who is legally blind and hangs clothes at a Goodwill in Great Falls, Montana for less than minimum wage.

"It's a question of civil rights," added his wife, Sheila, blind from birth, who quit her job at the same Goodwill store when her already low wage was cut further. "I feel like a second-class citizen. And I hate it."

Section 14 © of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was passed in 1938, allows employers to obtain special minimum wage certificates from the Department of Labor. The certificates give employers the right to pay disabled workers according to their abilities, with no bottom limit to the wage.

Most, but not all, special wage certificates are held by nonprofit organizations like Goodwill that then set up their own so-called "sheltered workshops" for disabled employees, where employees typically perform manual tasks like hanging clothes.

The non-profit certificate holders can also place employees in outside, for-profit workplaces including restaurants, retail stores, hospitals and even Internal Revenue Service centers. Between the sheltered workshops and the outside businesses, more than 216,000 workers are eligible to earn less than minimum wage because of Section 14 ©, though many end up earning the full federal minimum wage of $7.25.

Harold Leigland, who is blind, with his guide dog on the bus during his morning commute to the Goodwill facility in Great Falls, Montana, where he works hanging clothing.
When a non-profit provides Section 14 C workers to an outside business, it sets the salary and pays the wages. For example, the Helen Keller National Center, a New York school for the blind and deaf, has a special wage certificate and has placed students in a Westbury, N.Y., Applebee's franchise. The employees' pay ranged from $3.97 per hour to $5.96 per hour in 2010. The franchise told NBC News it has also hired workers at minimum wage from Helen Keller. A spokesperson for Applebee's declined to comment on Section 14 C.

Helen Keller also placed several students at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Manhasset, N.Y., in 2010, where they earned $3.80 and $4.85 an hour. A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman defended the Section 14 © program as providing jobs to "people who would otherwise not have [the opportunity to work]."

Most Section 14 C workers are employed directly by nonprofits. In 2001, the most recent year for which numbers are available, the GAO estimated that more than 90 percent of Section 14 C workers were employed at nonprofit work centers.

Critics of Section 14 C have focused much of their ire on the nonprofits, where wages can be just pennies an hour even as some of the groups receive funding from the government. At one workplace in Florida run by a nonprofit, some employees earned one cent per hour in 2011.

"People are profiting from exploiting disabled workers," said Ari Ne'eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. "It is clearly and unquestionably exploitation."
Defenders of Section 14 C say that without it, disabled workers would have few options. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News that Section 14 © "provides workers with disabilities the opportunity to be given meaningful work and receive an income."

Terry Farmer, CEO of ACCSES, a trade group that calls itself the "voice of disability service providers," said scrapping the provision could "force [disabled workers] to stay at home," enter rehabilitation, "or otherwise engage in unproductive and unsatisfactory activities."

Harold Leigland, however, said he feels that Goodwill can pay him a low wage because the company knows he has few other places to go. "We are trapped," he said. "Everybody who works at Goodwill is trapped."

Leigland, a 66-year-old former massage therapist with a college degree, currently earns $5.46 per hour in Great Falls.

His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 C workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.

CONTINUED: http://openchannel.n...-its-legal?lite
****************************************************************************************************

The real culprit here is socialism. Were it not for the minimum wage, they could pay us ALL this way. Equality!

[PERM BANNED]

I'm sorry. I don't see an issue with that at all. These are people who are already on government assistance for their livelihood. They're working at Goodwill, an institution that takes donated clothing and other used items and sells them at an incredibly discounted cost to those in need and in poverty. No one is profiting from the disabled here. These people are hardly meeting the standards and expectations that a perfectly capable individual would be expected to meet. I personally view that they're even being offered a job as a form of charity. The DOL rep said "Section 14 © "provides workers with disabilities the opportunity to be given meaningful work and receive an income." And that is exactly what it is. A means for people with a disability to still contribute and not feel as if they are unable to do something meaningful. I guess Goodwill could always jack the prices up on that used jacket some poor kid in Chicago would have bought to make it through the winter, just so these people can make a few more bucks. Look at it this way, without the ability to pay these people low wages for very low work quality (not due to their ethics, but ability) they wouldn't hire them. If they are going to be forced to pay higher wages, they'll hire fully able-bodied people who don't take 30 minutes to hang up 3 pieces of clothing. I have some experience dealing with the disabled, specifically the blind. The Army contracts out most of its daily use supplies to SkillCraft which almost exclusively hires the blind. Every base has a SkillCraft store that employs blind workers. Very nice people and more than willing to help. But obviously their disability puts a limit on what they can do.

[wedjat]

And people wonder about the humanity of certain people in this country. Perfect example right above.

[TAP]

There's loads of threads for misery.....

http://au.businessin...-success-2013-7

In 2009, Sam Eisho walked into the Centrelink office at Maroubra and tried to give the staff a cheque for more than $18,000.
Told to line up at the end of the claims queue, he attempted to explain that he was there to pay back what he felt he owed the Australian Government.
The amount was equivalent to all the welfare payments he received between 1999 and 2001, when he first arrived here and before he started the construction company he’s successfully built.

[Mr. Roboto]

I agree, on this thread, stay on topic.